Tips and general information from David C. Streicher, an inactive Portland, Oregon attorney (licensed in Oregon and Washington, with 30 years of experience) specializing in estate planning, small business and tax planning who welcomes your comments or questions at davidcstreicher@gmail.com

● The estate tax, gift tax and generation skipping tax exemptions of $5M have been retained. (Actually, the exemption is now $5.25M per spouse by reason of inflationary adjustments.) Continue reading →

If you are a married and need a simple will that minimizes or eliminates estate taxes, consider using a “disclaimer will.” It provides “wait and see” flexibility on whether to use tax planning trusts when the first spouse dies. Continue reading →

Now that the federal estate tax exemption has increased to $5M per spouse, and is “portable,” death taxes are of less concern to family business owners. (“Portable” means that the unused exemption from the first spouse to die may be used by the surviving spouse, which effectively creates a $10M exemption for married couples.) Although Oregon and Washington still have an estate tax (with exemptions of $1M and $2M per spouse, respectively), the state death tax bill should not force the sale of the business.Continue reading →

General Overview. For the last 20 years, variations of the A/B Trust have been the cornerstone of estate tax planning for married couples. In a nutshell, the A/B Trust structure prevents all or a portion of the wealth from the first spouse to die from being included in the surviving spouse’s estate — even though she has the use of the money for the rest of her life.Continue reading →

Each spouse’s $5 million federal estate tax exclusion is now “portable,” meaning that the portion of the exemption not used by the first spouse to die is added to the exclusion of the surviving spouse. See Internal Revenue Code Section 2010(c) and IRS Notice 2011-82. Thus, for example, if all of the decedent’s wealth passes to the surviving spouse, the surviving spouse’s exclusion at death will be $10 million, rather than just $5 million. With only modest planning, a married couple can now pass $10 million of wealth to their children without any federal estate tax.Continue reading →

David C. StreicherDavid C. Streicher is a Portland, Oregon estate planning attorney. He is licensed in Oregon and Washington, and has 29 years of experience in wills, trusts, probate, estate litigation, tax planning and general business. He is the author of Chapter 1 of the Oregon State Bar treatise Administering Oregon Estates. David is also licensed in Oregon as a CPA (but prepares no income tax returns).http://www.oregonwillstrustsprobate.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Streicher-picture-January-20085-150x150.jpghttp://www.oregonwillstrustsprobate.com